Monday, August 10, 2009

Consulting On A Health Care Prescription

By Kirk Victor  

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Senate minority leader

Shortly before the Senate went on its August recess last week, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., outlined his view of the political landscape as well as the political fallout for Republicans from the Senate's 68-31 vote to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court.

McConnell's comments came during a phone interview on Thursday. Edited excerpts follow.

NJ: How do you feel heading into recess?

McConnell: I think we are going out to communicate with the American people about health care. And they are going to communicate with us. And these silly efforts to demonize organizing efforts, you guys [reporters] ought not to buy into that, because the president has his $8 million e-mail list and we fully expect him to use that. Since when is organizing unusual in politics? What was that famous Claude Rains line in Casablanca: "Gambling in Casablanca?" Organizing in politics?

I mean, sort of dismissing dissent as some kind of conspiracy I think probably ought not to be taken seriously by you guys. I don't know whether you are or not. But you shouldn't. And I suspect they are going to be a helluva lot better organized than we are.

NJ: Are you disappointed that so many Republicans [nine] supported Judge Sotomayor's confirmation?

McConnell: No, we did not whip this. Our goal here was to treat this nominee with the respect that many of our nominees did not receive and to judge the nominee on the merits. I think the committee did an excellent job of that, and the full Senate has done the same. She, by the way, complimented the committee at the end of the hearings with the way she was treated, and I think we have set a standard for civility and fairness that was clearly absent on several occasions on the other side when we had the nominees.

NJ: Sen. Jim DeMint's comment that the health care issue could be President Obama's Waterloo got a lot of press. Is the outcome of health care a defining moment for the administration, or is that hyperbolic?

McConnell: This is about the issue itself. This is not about his administration or the ups and downs that you go through in politics. This is a mega-issue dealing with a sixth of the economy and everybody's principal concern, darn near their principal concern, which is their own health. This is no small issue. And it needs to be done right. And I don't view it as related to the success or failure of anybody in government service. I think we have an obligation to get it right, and that obviously doesn't argue for doing something this massive with warp speed like we did with the stimulus bill.

NJ: Currently there is talk of a mid-September deadline for the Finance Committee to move a health care bill. Any reaction?

McConnell: We'll see what the American people tell us during August and I think we will better assess that when we get back.